Resilience: What Do We Mean?

Sculpture by Michal Trbak

MUSEUM NOTES

Jeanne Vergeront

Vergeront Museum Planning

Among the buzzwords brought to us by COVID-19–pivot, unprecedented, agile, and pandemic–is the near-ubiquitous word, resilience. Throughout the pandemic, resilience seems to have been everywhere, in headlines, blog topics, articles, and conference themes. 

When I asked two colleagues what they mean by resilience, one said, “keep going in spite of all sorts of things that have happened and continue to happen.” The other said, “optimism and hope that what you’re working towards is going to get you to a better place.” One website recommended museum workers develop resilience by taking a break and allowing time for self-care. Other views of resilience in a museum context are set in long-term, large-scale challenges such as Louisiana Children’s Museum’s resilience framework developed in response to Hurricane Katrina. 

And that’s resilience only in the museum context. 

My introduction to resilience was in the mid 1990’s by Ann S. Masten, then a Minnesota Children’s Museum board member, professor of Child Development at the University of Minnesota, and researcher on resilience in children. In that context, resilience refers to children’s ability to pull through or bounce back from challenges and stress with the help of a set of protective factors provided by positive experiences, individuals, the family, and the community. 

So, when someone refers to resilience, I can’t help but wonder what they mean. Are they referring to individuals—children, youth, museum staff, or leaders? Maybe they mean groups such as families, museums or schools. Or cities and communities. Might they be viewing resilience as mental health, child development, family strength, organizational health, or climate change? Are they thinking resilience is surviving, recovering, or thriving? While any, or even all, of these meanings are possible, they are not always clear or applicable. 

Resilience, also referred to as resiliency, is understandably of great interest to museums especially after our long pandemic year, economic slowdown, and social unrest. The pandemic, however, was not the first upheaval for some museums; nor will it be the last. In the wake of hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Sandy (2012), museums coped with environmental disruption, endured related trauma, and struggled to survive. Going forward, all museums will encounter change including large-scale disruption. External circumstances intersect with museum missions, community responsibility, resources, and long-term viability. They always have, but we are acutely aware of it now. 

An attractive, timely construct, resilience is much more than bouncing back which is precisely what makes it so valuable. 

Unpacking Resilience 

Over the last 40 years, multiple theories, frameworks, models, and studies on resilience have developed across disciplines, from human development to epidemiology to educational administration to social sciences. Although terms and definitions vary among disciplines, models, and researchers, resilience is applied at the level of the individual, family, organization, community, and environment. Frameworks and models are not interchangeable, but they do share some underlying elements related to good outcomes in the face of challenge, adversity, and misfortune. 

In general, resilience is an asset-based, not a deficit-based, construct. Rather than focusing on the negative consequences of exposure to adversity, resilience centers on the positive variables, or protective factors, that individuals and organizations possess to deal with stressors and to moderate exposure to risk and trauma. Not a single, static trait located in a particular place or person, resilience is more like a capacity distributed across people, organizations, places, and relationships dealing with personal loss, natural disaster, or a pandemic. Interconnections occur not only among individuals, organizations, and other systems, but also among multiple internal and external factors. Internal factors include skills, hardiness, support, and optimism while external and environmental factors include supportive resources, relationships, and robust systems. There appear to be parallel resilience factors such as close relationships, active coping, hope and optimism, and a positive view of self or community that work at multiple levels. 

Across various stages of adversity and challenge, individuals, organizations, and community respond by surviving, recovering, or even thriving. 

• Surviving involves continuing to function but at an impaired rate. 
• Recovering points to a return over time to where the individual or organization was previously in spite of stressful experiences. 
• Thriving is going beyond the original level of functioning as a result of experiencing setbacks as a growth opportunity. 

These shared features across models and scales, from individuals to groups like families and organizations, to cities and regions are a helpful context to museums thinking about and growing their capacity for resilience. 

Resiliency Frameworks 

Much more than reacting to events thrust upon us or our museums or those of our own doing, resilience is how families, museums, and communities prepare for, respond to, and adapt to change and challenge. Since every museum will at some time meet with upheaval as will its leaders, staff, community, and visitors, museums want–and need–to be prepared for the next disruptive event whether it is economic, social, ecological, or medical. 

As many museums have learned over the last 18 months, how they weathered the pandemic was a function of multiple factors, some within their control and others beyond their control. It was not only the nature of the pandemic itself, but how the museum was prepared and how it responded that made a difference in the pandemic's impact. 

To minimize setbacks and adapt successfully to disturbances, museums need to anticipate and prepare for both incremental change and major disruptions before the next crisis. One step in preparing is developing a resiliency framework that identifies risks, develops protective factors, and increases readiness to adapt. 

Each museum’s resiliency framework will be, and should be, different. The specific steps taken, questions explored, and participants involved will also vary by museum. The following sets of questions are intended to help launch discussions and reflections on how the museum has fared over the pandemic, consolidate lessons learned, clarify local resilience challenges, and identify protective factors and opportunities. 

Build a deeper, shared understanding of resilience. Think about: 

• How does the museum view resilience in its context? 
• Where is the museum’s greatest interest, or need, in growing resilience? Is it in its staff, leadership, the organization, its audience? 

Ground the framework in the current situation and its particular resiliency challenge. Think about: 

• In what areas–health and well-being; equity; cohesive and connected communities; resources; environmental–is the museum most likely to face challenges? 
• What might the nature of these challenges, or disruptions, be? 
• What are alternative ways to view the greatest challenges, or view a challenge as an asset? 
• Over which external factors does it have greater and lesser control over? 

Examine the museum’s internal capacity and challenges. Think about: 

• What protective factors does the museum, leadership, staff, children and youth in the community or the city currently enjoy? 
• How can the museum intentionally build on this capacity to better meet disruptions? 
• In what areas could additional capabilities enhance the museum’s resilience? 
• What does the museum have control over that can promote resilience? 

Look ahead, prepare for what’s next. Think about: 

• What does surviving, recovering, and thriving look like in the face of disruptions? 
• Where is the museum under-investing in its capacity? 
• What additional strategies must it develop? 
• Where does the museum start in growing and organizing resources for resilience? 
• What will keep the museum flexible and nimble? 

Developing a resilience framework won't stop a pandemic or natural disaster in its tracks, but it will help soften the blow, assist the museum in adapting, help it bounce back, and, ultimately, flourish in the face of change. 

Resilience Across Contexts and Scales

• Resilient Cities Work being supported by the Rockefeller Foundation 
• The Resilience Playbook, Ann W. Ackerson, Gail Anderson, and Dina Bailey 
• Resilience Theory and Research on Children and Families: Past, Present, and Promise by Ann S. Masten 
• Multisystem Resilience for Children and Youth in Disaster: Reflections in the Context of COVID-19 by Ann S. Masten and Frosso Motti-Stefanidi 
• Conceptual Frameworks and Research Models on Resilience in Leadership by Janet Ledesma